Made in England ResearchDataset
Food waste statistics and facts: UK and worldwide
The latest estimates of how much food is wasted in the UK, the EU and worldwide, where it happens, whether it is falling, and how they compare with the older figures that are still widely quoted.
This page brings together the latest official and research estimates for the UK, the European Union and the world, and explains how they relate to the older figures that are still widely quoted, including the “one third of all food” estimate and the 88 million tonne estimate for Europe.
Key figures
- 58%of UK food waste comes from households: 6.0 million tonnes a year.
- £22.3bnis the value of the food that could have been eaten but was thrown away in the UK after it left the farm, £17.5bn of it in homes.
- 13.3%of the world's food is lost between harvest and the shop, before it reaches retail (FAO, 2023).
Food waste in the UK
UK food waste by sector, million tonnes a year, using data for 2021 and 2022.
- Households6.0m t
- On farms1.6m t
- Food and drink manufacturing1.4m t
- Hospitality and food service1.1m t
- Shops0.2m t
Source: WRAP, UK Food Waste and Food Surplus: Key Facts, July 2025, figure 1. Household figure is for 2022, other sectors 2021. The on-farm figure is WRAP's central estimate, within a range of 0.9 to 3.5 million tonnes.
Households produce most of the UK's food waste. Around 4.4 million tonnes of what households throw away could have been eaten; the rest is inedible parts such as peel, bones and tea bags. Total food waste is equivalent to about a quarter of the 39 million tonnes of food bought each year to eat at home.
On farms
WRAP's central estimate of 1.6 million tonnes wasted on UK farms a year comes with a wide range, because farm waste is hard to measure. Growers report losing more of some crops. In a 2018 survey of UK fruit and vegetable growers by the food waste charity Feedback, farmers said they typically lost 10% to 16% of their crop in an average year. They put this down to supermarket rules on size, shape and colour, orders cancelled or cut at the last minute, and gluts with nowhere to sell the surplus.
Is it falling?
UK food waste after the farm gate, kg per person a year.
| Sector | 2007 | 2018 | Latest | Change since 2007 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Households | 90.9 | 66.5 | 70.8 | -22% |
| Food and drink manufacturing | 31.0 | 22.7 | 20.6 | -34% |
| Hospitality and food service | 15.0 | 16.5 | 16.2 | +8% |
| Shops | 4.7 | 3.8 | 3.5 | -26% |
| Total | 141.7 | 109.5 | 111.0 | -22% |
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, table 2. Latest is 2022 for households and 2021 for other sectors. Household figures cover food waste collected by councils only, not food put down the sink or composted at home.
UK food waste per person fell by 22% between 2007 and 2021/22, but has not fallen since 2018. The UK target, shared with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, is to halve it by 2030 to about 71 kg per person, which needs a further cut of around 40 kg per person.
Most of that fall came early. WRAP's Household Food and Drink Waste in the UK 2012 report, published in November 2013, found that food and drink thrown away by households that could have been eaten fell by 21% between 2007 and 2012, from 5.3 million to 4.2 million tonnes. All household food and drink waste fell by 1.3 million tonnes over the same years, to 7.0 million tonnes, and was then worth £12.5bn a year.
What households throw away
Food and drink thrown away in UK homes that could have been eaten, by type, share of weight, 2022.
- Fresh vegetables and salad28%
- Meals12%
- Bakery11%
- Dairy and eggs9%
- Fresh fruit8%
- Drinks7%
- Meat and fish6%
- Everything else19%
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, section 4.2.
Fresh potatoes, home-made and ready meals, bread and milk are the most wasted items. Every day, UK homes throw away around 2.7 million whole potatoes, 2.0 million whole carrots, 1.3 million whole tomatoes and 970,000 whole bananas without using any of them.
Halloween pumpkins
Most pumpkins bought for Halloween are carved and thrown away. The environmental charity Hubbub estimated in 2014 that 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin had gone to landfill in the UK after the previous Halloween, the weight of 1,500 double-decker buses. Polling for the charity found that 64% of people threw their pumpkin away once Halloween was over. Hubbub's 2022 polling estimated that 39.9 million pumpkins would be bought that year and 22.2 million would go uneaten, food worth £32.6 million, and found that only 59% of people knew pumpkins were edible. Hubbub has run its Pumpkin Rescue campaign, now called Eat Your Pumpkin, every autumn since 2014.
What it costs a household
Food thrown away at home that could have been eaten, average amount and value, 2022.
| Who | Per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Per person | 65 kg, £260 | 5 kg, £22 |
| Average household (2.4 people) | 150 kg, £620 | 13 kg, £51 |
| Household of four | 260 kg, £1,030 | 22 kg, £86 |
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, table 7. Values at 2022 prices. Excludes inedible parts such as peel and bones.
That is the equivalent of about 3 meals per person each week. The edible food thrown away by UK households is linked to at least 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, about the same as one in five cars on UK roads, according to WRAP.
Waste and its value by sector
Food that could have been eaten but was thrown away in the UK, by sector.
| Sector | Tonnes | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Households | 4,360,000 | £17.5bn |
| Hospitality and food service | 800,000 | £3.21bn |
| Food and drink manufacturing | 706,000 | £0.85bn |
| Shops | 234,000 | £0.74bn |
| Total | 6,100,000 | £22.3bn |
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, table 1. Values at 2021 prices. Households are 2022, other sectors 2021. Excludes inedible parts.
Hospitality and food service, which covers restaurants, pubs, hotels, cafes, schools and hospitals, throws away 800,000 tonnes of food that could have been eaten each year, worth £3.2bn. It is the only sector where food waste per person is higher than in 2007.
Targets and the Courtauld Commitment
The UK's voluntary agreement on food waste began as the Courtauld Commitment in 2005, ran through Courtauld 2, Courtauld 3 and Courtauld 2025, became Courtauld 2030 and is now called the UK Food and Drink Pact. Its targets for 2030 are:
- to halve food waste per person after the farm gate, compared with 2007, in line with the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 12.3
- to halve greenhouse gas emissions from the food and drink the UK eats, compared with 2015
- to source half of fresh food from areas with sustainable water management
To hit the food waste target, total food waste needs to fall to about 70.5 kg per person by 2030, a further cut of around 40 kg. The biggest cut needed is in hospitality and food service, which would need a further cut equal to 58% of its 2007 level.
Earlier agreements had smaller, shorter goals. Over Courtauld 3 (2012 to 2015), signatories avoided an estimated 100,000 tonnes of food waste, worth about £100 million. Under the Hospitality and Food Service Agreement over the same years, businesses saved an estimated 24,000 tonnes of food, worth £67 million, and cut related emissions by 11%.
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, section 2 and table 6.
Surplus food redistributed
Around 191,000 tonnes of surplus food were redistributed in the UK in 2023, worth about £760 million and enough for nearly 460 million meals. Organisations that reported in every year redistributed 40% more in 2023 than in 2021. Between 2015 and 2023 about 780,000 tonnes were redistributed, worth over £3 billion.
Charities handle 73% of it, commercial redistributors the rest, and shops and manufacturers supply 71%. Hospitality and food service supplies 7% and farms 4%.
Source: WRAP, Key Facts July 2025, section 3, from WRAP's annual survey of redistribution organisations.
Food waste in Europe
Food waste in the EU by sector, kg per person, 2024.
- Households69 kg
- Food and drink manufacturing25 kg
- Restaurants and food service15 kg
- Farming and fishing10 kg
- Shops and other food distribution10 kg
Source: Eurostat, Food waste and food waste prevention by NACE Rev. 2 activity (env_wasfw), updated 28 September 2026. EU total for 2024 is estimated by Eurostat.
The EU wasted 57.9 million tonnes of food in 2024, 129 kg per person. Households produced 69 kg per person, over half the total. The figure has barely changed since EU countries began measuring in a common way in 2020 (128 kg per person).
By country
Food waste per person by country, kg a year, 2023.
- Cyprus286 kg
- Denmark261 kg
- Greece201 kg
- Romania188 kg
- Portugal156 kg
- Norway149 kg
- Iceland148 kg
- Lithuania144 kg
- France142 kg
- Italy138 kg
- Ireland136 kg
- Belgium135 kg
- Germany131 kg
- Estonia131 kg
- Austria130 kg
- Malta128 kg
- EU average128 kg
- Latvia127 kg
- Poland127 kg
- Finland127 kg
- Luxembourg124 kg
- Croatia122 kg
- Sweden122 kg
- Netherlands116 kg
- Czechia98 kg
- Slovakia97 kg
- Bulgaria96 kg
- Hungary88 kg
- Slovenia78 kg
- Spain54 kg
Source: Eurostat, env_wasfw. 2023 is the latest year with figures for every country. Countries measure in different ways, so small differences between them should not be read as real differences in behaviour. Norway and Iceland are included for comparison. The UK left the EU in 2020 and is not included.
Download food waste per person by country, 2020 to 2024 (CSV)
Food waste around the world
Global food waste by sector, 2022.
| Where | kg per person a year | Million tonnes |
|---|---|---|
| Households | 79 | 631 |
| Food service | 36 | 290 |
| Shops | 17 | 131 |
| Total | 132 | 1,052 |
Source: UN Environment Programme, Food Waste Index Report 2024.
The UN Environment Programme estimates that 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022 by households, food service and shops, 19% of the food available to consumers. Separately, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 13.3% of food is lost after harvest and before it reaches shops, through spoilage, damage and losses in storage, transport and processing. The two measures cover different stages, so together they are close to, but not the same as, a single “share of all food” figure.
Food waste and climate change
UNEP estimates that food loss and waste causes 8 to 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, almost five times as much as aviation. In 2013 the Food and Agriculture Organization put it another way: if food waste were a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. In the UK, WRAP links the edible food thrown away by households alone to at least 16 million tonnes of emissions a year.
Sources: UNEP, Food Waste Index Report 2024; FAO, Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources, 2013; WRAP, Key Facts July 2025.
The older figures still quoted
“A third of all food is lost or wasted”
This comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization's 2011 report, Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention, which estimated that roughly one third of the edible parts of food produced for people, about 1.3 billion tonnes a year, was lost or wasted. It was an early estimate built from limited data, and was promoted for years through the FAO's SAVE FOOD initiative. The FAO and UNEP now measure losses and waste separately, using the figures above: 13.3% lost before shops, and 19% of food available to consumers wasted. The two newer figures are not a like-for-like update of the 2011 estimate.
“The EU wastes 153 million tonnes of food a year”
This comes from No Time to Waste, a report by the campaign group Feedback EU published in September 2022. It estimated that the EU wastes 153.5 million tonnes of food a year, more than the almost 138 million tonnes of agricultural products it imported in 2021, worth €150 billion. Feedback put 89.8 million tonnes of the total on farms, at the primary production stage, three times its estimate of 32.5 million tonnes from households. Eurostat's official figures record 10 kg per person from farming and fishing, so most of the gap between the two totals comes from what is counted on farms. It is a campaign estimate built from several studies, not an official statistic.
“88 million tonnes of food wasted in Europe”
This comes from the EU-funded FUSIONS project's report, Estimates of European Food Waste Levels, published in March 2016. It estimated that 88 million tonnes of food were wasted a year across the then 28 EU countries, including the UK: 173 kg per person, around 20% of food produced, worth an estimated €143 billion. Households accounted for 47 million tonnes, 53% of the total. Eurostat's official figures, which start in 2020, cover 27 countries without the UK and use a different method, so the drop from 173 kg to 129 kg per person does not mean waste has fallen by that much.
How these figures are made
Where they come from
UK figures are from WRAP, the charity that measures UK food waste for the government and the food industry. EU figures are Eurostat's official statistics, reported by member states under EU waste law since 2020. Global figures are from the UN Environment Programme's Food Waste Index and the Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Loss Index, which track the UN's target to halve food waste by 2030. We have not combined or adjusted any of them, except to round.
Why the numbers differ
Food waste usually includes inedible parts such as bones, peel and shells as well as food that could have been eaten. Some figures count only the edible part. Sources also differ on whether they include farms, food put down the sink or home compost, and on the year, the population and the countries covered. Compare like with like: a per person figure for households is not the same as a per person figure for the whole food chain.
Sources: WRAP, UK Food Waste and Food Surplus: Key Facts, July 2025; Eurostat, env_wasfw; UNEP, Food Waste Index Report 2024; FAO, SDG indicator 12.3.1a, Food Loss Index; FAO, Global Food Losses and Food Waste: Extent, Causes and Prevention, 2011; FUSIONS, Estimates of European Food Waste Levels, 2016.
Also: Feedback EU, No Time to Waste, September 2022, as reported by the European Environmental Bureau; Feedback, survey of UK fruit and vegetable growers, 2018, as reported by Sustain; Hubbub, The great Halloween pumpkin rescue, The Ecologist, 31 October 2014; Hubbub's 2022 polling, as reported by the Sustainable Food Trust.
Eurostat data is reused under the Eurostat copyright notice (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0). WRAP, UNEP, FAO, FUSIONS, Feedback and Hubbub figures are quoted with their source.
Related research
How much of its own food does the UK produce? covers self-sufficiency since 1956, and UK food and drink industry in numbers covers the size of the industry, jobs and trade.
Next update
We will update this page when WRAP, Eurostat, UNEP or the FAO publish new figures.
Suggested citation
Made in England Research, Food waste statistics and facts: UK and worldwide, November 2026, from WRAP, Eurostat, UNEP and FAO figures. https://madeinengland.com/pages/food-waste-statistics